The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Creating Accessible Learning Experiences

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Creating Accessible Learning Experiences

Accessibility is “the extent to which an experience, product, or space can be utilized by anyone” (Gunawardena, Frechette & Layne, 2018, p. 278). As more and more courses are taught in online environments, many have shared how vital it is for digital learning environments to be as accessible as possible.

All institutions of higher learning in the United States are required by law to create accessible learning environments. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (amended in 2008) prohibits discrimination against, and mandates reasonable accommodation for, persons with disabilities. Additionally, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Sections 504 and 508, makes it illegal to exclude or discriminate against qualified individuals from programs receiving federal aid. In both cases, discrimination includes inaccessible digital content. Underscoring this legal mandate, Brown University’s DIAP Phase II expresses a commitment “to ensure an equitable experience for individuals with disabilities across all major web and technology platforms and experiences” (p. 12). 

Beyond satisfying legal requirements, a commitment to accessibility has important pedagogical benefits. Accommodating students with disabilities or with different technology needs helps create a more inclusive learning environment in general and enables all students' full engagement with course materials. Video captions and audio transcripts, for example, can help not only students who cannot hear the content, but also those who prefer to study in quiet spaces or students who speak primary languages other than English. Designing for accessibility means designing for all. (This is one of the tenets of Universal Design for Learning, a helpful framework for optimizing student learning.)

However, national studies suggest that it can be challenging for instructors to know where to start (Shinohara, Kawas, Ko, & Ladner, 2018). Fortunately, Brown instructors have access to a Canvas accessibility tool called Pope Tech.

What Is Pope Tech?

Pope Tech helps instructors to fix common digital accessibility errors and develop more inclusive and accessible learning environments. The Canvas tool enables instructors to identify accessibility issues in their Canvas course content and provides recommendations for resolution. Examples of accessibility fixes supported by Pope Tech include improving color contrast, verifying heading hierarchy, and adding alternative text for images.

In October 2025, Digital Learning & Design installed PopeTech for use with academic courses using Canvas within the academic year 2025-2026 and beyond.  Within these courses, instructors and TAs have access to 2 tools:  An Accessibility Guide that supports faculty in remediating Canvas content (Canvas Pages, Announcements, Syllabus, - anywhere where the rich content editor is visible) and the PopeTech Accessibility dashboard which provides summary information about accessibility issues within Canvas course content.  These tools are only available to users in the course with a course admin role (e.g., Teacher, TA, Designer). 

Next Steps

If you are teaching a course in academic year 2025-2026 or later, you should already see the Pope Tech Accessibility button in your Course Navigation menu and also have access to the accessibility guide in all Canvas content pages where the rich content editor is visible.  Brown instructors who have questions about accessibility can email dld@brown.edu, set up an accessibility consultation, or review Brown’s Pope Tech guides. Brown also offers a general guide on digital inclusion and accessible learning design and also offers a tool for accessible document conversion called SensusAccess.

As distance education scholars note: “Ensuring accessibility requires viewing the organization through the eyes of prospective learners, identifying barriers as they perceive them, [and] developing strategies to minimize or eliminate barriers” (Tait and O’Rourke, 2014, p. 57). Digital accessibility is a feature that benefits all learners and educators, and thus brings institutions of education ever closer to their most democratic and inclusive aspirations and goals.

Do you or your students have additional strategies for improving the accessibility of digital learning? We would love to hear from you at sheridan_center@brown.edu.

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References

Gunawardena, C., Frechette, C. & Layne, L. (2018). Culturally inclusive instructional design: A framework and guide to building online wisdom communities. Routledge.

Shinohara, K., Kawas, S., Ko, A. J., & Ladner, R. E. (2018). Who teaches accessibility? A survey of US computing faculty. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 197-202.

Tait, A., & O’Rourke, J. (2014). Internationalization and concepts of social justice: What is to be done? In O. Zawacki-Richter & T. Anderson (Eds.), Online distance education: Towards a research agenda. Edmonton, Canada: Athabasca University Press.

Thank you to Juana L. De Los Santos, Assistant Vice President of Equal Opportunity and Diversity at Brown University, for feedback on this text.